Tag: fictional characters

The Garden of Dearthly Delights

~ Jen ~ 4 Comments

The Manteno Cantina reviews start to pile up all over social media:

“False advertising! They tricked us into thinking we were attending a Gotion protest when it was really just a stupid talent show. Plus those ‘free tickets’ are not really free because they have a two-drink minimum!”

“Bernadette is one of their many talented performers. She plays the same two-hour set, refuses requests, then demands craptocoins! Come by on any day but Tuesday or Wednesday and enjoy the non-Bernadette singers.”

“The smelliest washrooms in Kankakee County since the dog-food factory closed down.”

“We’re losing business again. Why is it always the same eight people here?” the president of Bernadette Moran Cacca’s fan club, The Poopy Groupies, aunt Sonya Moran asks.

“Maybe we can hire that Hurlbutt kid to do his Elvis act.”

“Nahh.”

“How about we do some remodeling? And a name change? Nobody will know the difference,” suggests Poopy Groupie and neighborhood turd-burglar JB Powers.

“Not a bad idea. I’ll notate that.”

“I don’t know, Sonya, maybe we need more advertising?”

“Yeah, Dorian. That’s a wonderful idea! Woooooh!” Sonya exclaims a bit too hard, holding her brown note a bit too long.

Dorian begins to sing with excitement.

“Oh honey, don’t quit your day job.”

“Umm…Bernadette, my day job IS advertising and design.”

“Oh I mean keep going with that. I am sorry IF I hurt your feelings,” communal narcadoodle Bernadette gaslights in her typical fashion. She has the voice of an angel and the soul of the devil, leaving that bad taste in your mouth but you don’t quite know why.

Text alerts go out to every member of the Manteno Optimal Club via their CrapApp:

Kankakee Idol! Watch and sing along with the best Kankakee County singers, right here in K3! Watch our singing  competition from the comfort of your own home on Cable Access 19, or be a part of the audience in Manteno. Get your free tickets now! Another crappy show brought to you by Peppi’s Portapotties! Bernadette and Peppi Cacca are King and Queen of the Plastic Throne!

Signage has been plastered all over Kankakee County featuring the big cheesy grins of the judges, craptocoin emojis, and this text:

Tomato Karen & The Haggs
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away”

vs 

Wally Green
“Fart Your Birds”

Judges:

Bernadette Cacca
Sonya Moran
Dorian James

With your host, Konrad Teirant!

The day arrives. Emcee Konrad Teirant, one third of Moronic Half Assets and chief cooker of the CRASS books, hopes to make a big bag tonight.

“Live here, this is your host KT on the TV. Tonight at the Manteno Cantina, we have a real salad bar! We also have these ladies! Give it up for Tomato Karen & The Haggs as they sing “They’re Coming to Take Me Away!”

Tomato Karen Napoleon, Demanda Broccoli, Becca Frickfrick and Jamie Turnip try their very best to sing and play their poorly tuned instruments. As the crowd plugs their ears and Bernadette plugs the toilet, Tomato Karen’s ghastly wail raises in pitch and insanity – hitting a high C toward the very end – barely. 

“Thank you for that, whatever that was. Now let’s hear from our awesome judges. Bernadette?”

 “You guys are the GOAT! It’s a wooooooooooo from me!” Bernadette’s mouth opens wide, tongue hanging out as usual.

 “Why am I craving tin cans right now? Oh, speaking of can…” Bernadette runs off stage and straight to her favorite room to mine more craptocoins because she can. It’s potty time!

“Sonya?”

“The Haggs rule this composition. It’s a woo-hoo from me!”

“Dorian?”

 “This song is too repetitive.”

The crowd erupts in boos.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. It’s a yeah, no from me.”

Sounds of the disappointed crowd magnify.

“Speaking of boos, be sure to stop by our bar for our awesome drink specials!” Konrad spamvertises the already mad crowd.

“Butt, be sure to text us your votes on your smell phones! 815-555-FART.”

“Thank you Bernadette. You look awesome!”

“No, you!”

“You’re a national treasure Bernadette. This next guy is a real hoot! Tonight we present you Wally Green!” The bulbous, squat, 60-something enters the stage wearing a horizontal striped polo shirt, a fishing cap, and a cheesy grin.

“This one is for alllll the single ladies out there. Wally taps the microphone, causing ear-piercing distortion in the public address system.

“Fart your owls, fart your cockatiels. Let them fly away, let them fly for free. Don’t hug your dog, don’t kiss your cat. Love is what I got so give it all to meeeeeee!”

The three judges look at each other in wonder, confusion and astonishment.

In unison: “This is the dumbest thing we saw all day. It’s a heck-no from us!”

“Be sure to lock in your—“

“No nevermind, the razzy has already been awarded. The loser of Kankakee Idol is, Tomato Karen & The Haggs! Congratulations, you’re the only act we’ve seen that’s worse than Wally Green!”

“This is Konrad Teirant signing off…ooh is this thing on?”

MoronicArts Classics: This Is Not The Spam You Are Looking For…

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

Junk email broker, failed film student and nextdoor sociopath Pat Oswald Splatt ventured over to the Kankakee County Spam convention with high hopes to rake in new customers to rip off bombarding their inboxes with unsolicited commercial crap for fun and profits.

Sadly, Pat was disappointed to instead find Damien Hurlbutt, Sybil Kibble and her mom JK along along with people actually having fun celebrating canned lunchmeat.

Maybe the self-proclaimed master-marketer should have read the event advertisement more carefully.

MoronicArts Classics: Welcome to Hell

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

Kankakee pyramid schemer Doris Krabalsky and Bourbonnais communal narc-a-doodle Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt both arrive at Hell’s in-processing department at the same time.

“Sign the register” says Hell’s in-processing clerk and former Medical Office Assistant, Lucy Furr, who was notorious for bullying her roommate on their college trip to Italy. Meanwhile, Doris and Damien try to take over.

Beanefits of Being Morons

~ Jen ~ 3 Comments

Doris Krabalsky is bored waiting in her bed for her meal and medication. Who knew staying in the hospital could be so boring? Doris decides to go for a walk to the nice skin cancer patient she met earlier in the day.

“I have the perfect solution for you.”

“Is it the stinky pink drink?” the lady asks?

“No, I drank that for four years.” Doris replies.

“I am not using essential snake oils because I am smell-sensitive,” the elderly lady replies.

“Nope.”

Doris’ nurse walks in. “What is going on here? Patients are not supposed to go into other patients’ rooms. You all signed and initialed an agreement when you got here.”

“She was just telling me about a new treatment for my skin cancer.”

“Oh no, selling stuff is strictly prohibited here.”

“I am not selling, I am recommending.”

“Recommending? Only licensed medical providers are allowed to do that here, per your agreement Doris. Now you broke three rules. Three strikes, you are out. I am afraid we will have to release you.”

“Waaaaah! What about my bum knee?” Doris growled.

“Oh, ma’am your pain was not that bad anyway. I will be back shortly with your discharge papers. Are you calling for a ride home or shall we have Security escort you?”

“Hrrmph.”

Five hours later, the Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky walks in the room after leaving her home undeneath the bridge.

“Bustin’ outta here?”

“They are sending me home too soon,” Doris sighs to Leona.

“You say? How so?”

“They told me not to suggest our fine products to other patients.” Doris says to Leona.

“Oh, you should see these magic beans!”

“I have tooted enough, Leona.”

“No Doris, magical beans, not musical.”

The two sisters head out after Doris signs her discharge sheet.

Doris walks into her home and Leona meets her in the den.

Leona opens up a small paper bag and pulls out a handful of dried beans.

“You see, Doris, these are not any beans. They are magic beans.”

“How are they magical?” Doris asks her sister.

“They can make us lettuce.”

The two sisters look each other in the eye and grin.

“By convincing our customers that these beans I bought at the grocery store they have special health benefits which they do not, and persuading them to pay more than they need, we can make a lot of green!” Leona tells an intrigued Doris.

Doris and Leona get busy setting up a Fakebook page. Since Pat Splatt has left town for South Africa and is unreachable, the Krabalsky sisters develop a marketing plan on Utube.

“Since Grammarlee did so well advertising their overpriced Autocorrect program before every video, I thought we could make an even longer commercial with even more annoying music and sound effects!” Leona tells Doris.

“Let’s do it. Add a slide whistle, boom clappity music and a vuvuzela.”

“Done,” Leona tells Doris, feeling accomplished.

Emails come in and so does money. Beans go out. As the word gets out, so do more beans.

“Soon we will have to hire a bean counter!” Doris jokes to Leona.

“Ding!”

“Ahhh, we got our first review. Hopefully it will not be our last!” Doris tells a nearby Leona.

“These beans did not work at all. I thought these were magical and I did not feel a thing. I did not see a thing! Not recommended!”

“Ding!”

“I planted these magic beans and my beanstalk did not lead me to find a giant. I want my money back!”

“Ding!”

“I ate these musical beans I did not even toot even once. What a ripoff!”

Doris and Leona log onto Welp to read their reviews and they are even worse. Every customer wants their money back and contacts the duo for a refund.

“What do we do now, Doris?”

“I guess our product is a ‘has-bean’.”

MoronicArts Classics: Nobody’s Home

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

After yet another long week calling up strangers at work, patients in hospitals and people just trying to cook supper for their families, Kankakee bill collector Sybil Kibble is feeling stressed and irritated. She works as the team leader collecting dubious debt for Kankakee’s most shady debt-collector Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS), and she’s tired of people hanging up on her.

“Out of dog-food again! Dang, I just bought some at Schmucks! How did I eat all those Alpo cans so fast? They must be making them smaller now.”

Image: green-toned cartoon showing a blonde woman at a computer. Text on monitor reads "Collect-o-matic."

Needing someone with whom to vent, Miss Kibble goes over to visit her best friend and next-door neighbor, Mrs. Pearl Jo “PJ” Hulbutt who is busy meditating. Sybil barges right in and startles PJ who nearly bangs her head on the table, then tells her to “calm down!”

“Ah my boys have not come around lately. They don’t appreciate their mother and all I do for them! Have you seen that Kitty Bee lady? Her hair is pink now!”

PJ rambles on complaining about person after another. “Have you talked to your father?”

“I stopped talking to him years ago. You ask me that every time I come over. Why?”

“My father was not so nice. It says in the good book we should forgive people and pray for them to change.”

“He’s dead. His new wife was just as abusive, I hear she has an extra room. Why don’t you call her up? I am sure she would like the company. She’ll probably ask all kinds of questions about me! Go up to Chicago and spend a month or two to see what it’s like. Just call her after I leave.”

“No need to go overboard with your remarks. They are entitled to their beliefs as well. As a person with a daemon latched onto her body at the age of two that never leaves me alone, I understand fear and misunderstanding. I’ve been judged for my demeanor and nosey words my entire childhood but I still care and help others. I define me not other people.”

image: black and white cartoon of a blond woman outside a building, crows encircling her head as she screams.

Livid, Sybil Kibble stomps back to her home, and eats her last dog bone; much tastier than the word-salad her neighbor had spit out. Meanwhile, PJ hops on a bus to find more people to annoy:

“Why are all these people getting at the bus at once?” PJ Hurlbutt asks aloud to a bus full of strangers, looking around for someone that cares. An enquiring mind wants to know. PJ repeats her nosey nonsense and adds more crap to her routine. “Look at that lady with the green hair. Does she know those tattoos are permanent?”

“I’ll tell the mayor,” Dorian James deadpans, making a cheeky grin while adoring his boyfriend Ant’s half-sleeve.

Sybil calls a bunch of friends, hoping to hang out.

Pyramid-scheme-peddlers Doris and Leona Krabalsky’s phones go straight to voicemail.

Sybil drives her white Chrysler LeBaron to investigate why people are ignoring her calls and texts.

Slowing down through the I-57 underpass, she seeks the Kankakee troll Leona. Nope, she’s not home. 

Out of desperation, Ms. Kibble calls her hairdresser Lila Croule at her home-based salon, even though it’s a week too soon to get her face-frame cut, but sorry; more voicemail jail.

Sybil continues North toward Peotone to find her sharp-tongued stylist Lila Croule, hoping to trade barbs about moronic customers. After she parks her reliable box-mobile, she rings the doorbell at Lila’s front door. No answer. The RRRRRRGH of the lawn tractor stops and Sybil spots Lila trimming the edges of the grass using her $1000.00 hair shears, completely tuning out Ms. Kibble.

image: full-colour cartoon of a purple-haired woman riding a purple lawn-tractor, holding up a pair of shears. A blond woman peeks over the wooden fence.

“I hope these folks don’t visit my grave one day, since they don’t bother me while I’m alive! Hmmpf.”

As she drives back home to Kankakee, Sybil sees her subordinate Dale Davis jogging on the sidewalk, beeping his watch repeatedly. Dale waves to Sybil and beckons her to come hither so he can confess her love, and she just drives on by. Her stomach turns. She then drives to Major’s Supermarket to buy her favorite meals: buys 50 cans of Alpo, with which she drowns her worries at home, glad to be away from the rest of the Moroniverse.

image: yellow, black and white cartoon of a blonde woman wearing glasses, eating dog food.

MoronicArts Classics: Konrad Teirant Cleans House

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment
Image: a bald, stocky male with shoulder length orange hair and an orange beard clenches his jaw and looks to the left. Text: shirt reads "World's largest source of natural gas."

Bourbonnais cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narcadoodle Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt was last seen near Area 51.

While cleaning out his ex-employee’s desk, Teirant Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant found Damien’s scribbled-on evaluation forms. Behold, the work of a master-moron!

To The Moon, Bernadette!

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

What better a place to yeet Manteno’s biggest communal narc-a-doodle, ex-wrestler and self-proclaimed queen of the porcelain throne herself, Mrs. Bernadette Cacca?

Just think, she could have that whole lonely moon, err, planet to herself. What a waste NOT to send her on a rocket there! (Or a trebuchet, her neighbors are not picky).

https://news.sky.com/story/nearby-exoplanet-stinks-of-rotten-eggs-scientists-discover-13175259

MoronicArts Classics: That’s A Weird Flex, Robbie.

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment
Image: two panel, black-and-white cartoon. Panel 1: an Elvis impersonator does pull-ups on the bus as a gothic woman looks away. Panel 2: The Elvis impersonator dances at the bus station in the background, the gothic woman seen from behind in the foreground asleep.

Kankakee drugstore clerk, covert narcadoodle and self-proclaimed Number One Elvis Impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt spies his number one crush Gothic Diana Ross riding the bus. Hoping to impress her, like a peacock shaking his tail-feathers, Robbie flexes by doing pull-ups on the railing. Diana looks away, trying to hide her laughter.

Robbie continues flexing at the bus station, dancing around like a moronic fool as the rightfully uninterested gothic beauty Diana falls asleep, waiting for the Midnight Supremes to pick her up.

(Thank you for the prompt and the tip, Jennifer!)

A Hunka-hunka burnin’ junk

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

Kankakee bill collector, Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) Glee Club member and self-righteous narcadoodle Pam Frickfrick is such a huge Elvis fan, she bought up every single dancing Elvis bear she could find. Her favorites have built-in sensors to start singing, dancing and farting on her co-workers every time they walk by.

“You know, I wrote a book, actually seven. I know something about money. Let me tell you about–“

“I just want to speak to your supervisor.”

Before Pam has a chance to talk the guy out of escalating the call, Lead Debt Collector Sybil Kibble walks up to her cube, chomping on a dog biscuit.

“You know, Pam, we are losing money because of you.”

As Pam continues to ignore her supervisor and instead bothers the person about his dubious debt, her harmonica collection, alphabetized, and her obsession with stealing lawn ornaments, the robot bears sing and danc to a garbled recording of “Burnin’ Love.”

“Hey Pam, I think we have our new on-hold music!”

“Just wait a sec–“

Sybil knocks down all the android ursids into a big box and yoinks them from her subordinate. “Get back to work!” Miss Kibble commands to Pam, taking the cacaphony chorus line to Operations Manager Mikey Philips for a little dissection and maybe some vivisection, too.

Pam begins to smell smoke, gets up, stares across the office.

“Who’s got the cigarette?”

“Go back to work Pam!” the entire collections team chants in unison, shaking their collective heads.

Thankfully the smoke alarm stays silent for a change. Sybil hates farty horns.